


Lonely at the Top

by howboutinotdothis



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: character study I guess, crappy metaphors, mentions of depression, stream of consciousness kind of??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 07:26:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11413089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howboutinotdothis/pseuds/howboutinotdothis
Summary: In the stark darkness of the night, when it’s too late to study or to volunteer or to otherwise occupy herself beyond scrolling through social media listlessly, liking posts out of some sense of obligation and toiling over the low amount of likes and comments on her own posts, she begins to spiral in the ‘what if’s.





	Lonely at the Top

Alana’s life has become a prison of her own invention.

In the stark darkness of the night, when it’s too late to study or to volunteer or to otherwise occupy herself beyond scrolling through social media listlessly, liking posts out of some sense of obligation and toiling over the low amount of likes and comments on her own posts, she begins to spiral in the ‘what if’s. What if she hadn’t established herself as the smart girl? What if she’d allowed her grades to drop, allowed herself to be placed in lower level classes, allowed herself to blend in with the general, sweaty populace of her high school? What if she’d foregone a life of hard work and constant effort and merely coasted through the universe, a mere speck on the windshield of life, content to be unimportant and unimpressive?

Things would be different, certainly. Or so she chooses to believe, quashing the niggling voice in the back of her mind that insists that things probably would have been the same, that she can change her circumstances but not her personality, and that’s what people dislike about her. She doesn’t intimidate others with her intelligence, as her mother and counsellor are so fond of saying. Alana simply lacks that particular base charisma that saves most people from the lonely life of an outcast and she’s never been able to grasp it, not really, not even with the coaching her counsellor gives her on how to properly interact, not even with the books upon books she’s read that give pointers for making friends and learning how to relate to the common man, not ever. She’s a lost cause.

As the sunlight filters through her lacey curtains, the oppressive hopelessness that seems to settle in her chest every night, slowly suffocating her, takes its leave, banished by the brightness shining in her eyes. She takes one breath. Then another. Then another. She keeps taking breaths—measured, deliberate, _deep_ breaths—until she feels like getting out of bed is no longer an insurmountable task.

An orange prescription bottle sits by her sink in her bathroom, equal parts a blessing and a curse. She squints at it, vision blurry without her glasses, and wonders what the point of the medication is. There is no magic cure for her misery. Maybe it takes the edge off, maybe it decreases how many times she finds herself unable to get out of bed on weekend mornings, chest tight, hands trembling, wishing for tears to fall from her unbearably dry eyes to provide some sort of release, to unbottle all those ugly emotions she pushes down deep because they’re unseemly and unhelpful, maybe it helps just a little bit—but it’s one grain of sand on a beach, a single drop of water in the ocean, and the riptide is still lurking beneath the surface to drag her out to sea, never to be seen again.

Alana fills up her cup with water. Unscrews the bottle’s cap. Shakes one pill into her palm. It’s tiny—a small white circle in the center of her palm, taunting her with false promises she’s too desperate to believe in. She places the pill on her tongue. Sips the water. Swallows. She can feel the pill working its way down her throat.

Her heart aches. She pours the excess water down the sink, watching as it slides smoothly across the porcelain and down the drain. She’s tired. She’s always tired.

There’s a test in AP Calculus today. It’s on derivatives—the product rule, the chain rule, et cetera. Old hat for someone like her who’s been studying derivatives and integrals since freshman year when she earned herself a spot on the Mathletics team. She’ll do fine. No way she’ll score below a 90, but she’s aiming for a sweet 98. A 100 would be nice, but she learned early on that too many perfect scores rouse suspicion, and she doesn’t need them to secure valedictorian anyways. The boy in second place is lagging behind by 0.3 grade points and there’s no way he’s going to make those up and overtake her this year when he’s just been named captain of the track team. His grades will be slipping by the end of first quarter.

It’s lonely at the top. Her guidance counsellor says that all the time. You can’t be among your peers if you’re above them. Alana used to find some solace in his turns of phrase, but she’s come to realize that he’s merely pumping her full of that nonsense because he wants to be able to say one of his students got into Harvard or Yale or Brown or whatever Ivy League she ends up at. She’s nothing more than potential bragging rights to him.

There’s a momentary lapse in that listless numbness that fills her waking hours and a burst of energy brings a lovely warmth that settles under her skin, bathing her in golden light from the inside out. She could run away. Throw away her grades, throw away her college applications, run off to a big city like New York or Los Angeles or Miami. She could dye her hair, cut it short, start wearing a clown’s weight in makeup, invest in some more risqué attire. She could change her entire life at the drop of a hat.

Then the doubt comes creeping in.

The warmth disappears, leaving her cold and empty, rubbing her hands over her forearms in some feeble attempt to reclaim that feeling of warmth and excitement and _power_ from mere seconds before.

Nothing will change.

She won’t change.

She _can’t_ change.

She’s carved a life out for herself in the mountainside of the world with dedication and determination and all those other virtues they espouse at those school assemblies that come together to form the model student. She doesn’t have the energy to start over.

Alana continues her morning routine.

She swears she can still feel the pill sticking in her throat.


End file.
